Not Very Nice People - Chapter 10/11: One Last Chance free porn video

NOT VERY NICE PEOPLE by Crazy Baron Chapter 10: One Last Chance Synopsis: A kingdom for an antidote--that is the watchword for Mike and Jake as they head out to obtain a mysterious potion that promises to restore them to their original forms. They are perfectly willing to take great risks and go to extremes to be transformed back, but there are factors with which they have failed to reckon. ***** I woke up with a violent start. For a couple of seconds, I was once more completely disoriented and close to panic, with my heart pounding in my chest and my eyes wide, until my mental faculties began to report back to duty. After my pulse began to steady, I breathed a long, slow sigh of relief. I was tucked in my own bed in Greensville, and even though I was back to being trapped in the physical form of Buffy Summers--my sense of touch left no room for argument--at least I was safe and sound. However much I longed for my old body, I now had to admit to myself that this reality was becoming increasingly preferable to both the vacation-turned-nightmare future and Sunnydale. In fact, I was no longer sure which of the latter two was the more scary to live in. There was a temptation to go back to sleep for an hour or two, but the remnants of adrenaline in my system and the fact that the room was already filled with grayish late fall daylight convinced me that it was probably better to get up and rather have a short nap after breakfast if I still felt tired. I swung my legs out from under the blanket and rose to my feet. Although I had by this time had ample opportunity to become familiar with this youthful and energetic body, the spring it immediately had in its step nevertheless continued to impress me. I only needed to yawn and stretch my arms briefly, and then I felt ready to take on the world. There was a yellow sticky note on my desk, and it immediately attracted my attention. The handwriting on it was clearly my own: "Monday 9:00 - Jake, antidote". Congratulations to myself were in order; I had correctly assumed that I might experience another reality jump and forget most of what had happened yesterday, and that was precisely how things had turned out. The note was there to remind me that this was the day Jake and I would go on our secret mission. Pleasant anticipation and excitement filled me at that instant, although they were tempered with a small amount of apprehension. With a bit of luck, the person who would go to sleep in this room tonight would be a man, down to the last molecule of his body. After washing up and brushing my hair and my teeth, throwing on a variation of what had become my typical casual outfit and having an enjoyable and relaxed breakfast with Mom keeping me company (she had had hers earlier in the morning but she sat at the table and chatted with me), I had a particular little chore to take care of. I went to the den, sat down at the desktop computer and booted it up, and as soon as it allowed me to start the web browser, I went onto the University's main site, navigated my way to the students' webmail and logged in. My intention was to compose a quick e-mail message to the student services, notifying them that I wouldn't be attending the courses for a few more days, possibly weeks. In actual fact, it was more likely than not that I would have to drop out for good as I could obviously not show myself there anymore and claim I was Mike Caldwell, but I wanted to delay the final announcement in hopes that the antidote would work. I figured I deserved a long break, whether I would get my male shape restored or not. I typed a short passage of text into the appropriate input field and was about to send it when I realized it sounded stupid and I promptly deleted everything. The second try ended in the same result. I then spent several minutes thinking of a convincing and plausible excuse in advance, formulated it carefully in a couple of sentences, decorated the core text with the usual niceties--and again deleted everything in frustration. Finally, I managed to scrape together a message that mentioned a "family crisis" in the vaguest terms imaginable and explained that I needed some "personal time off". The office rats would have to content themselves with that, I thought and pressed the Send button. I very much hoped they would not start asking difficult questions and insist that I reveal the specifics of what was wrong with me and my family. "Did you mail them?" Mom asked me when I returned to the kitchen. "Yeah. It wasn't too easy to find the words." "What did you say to them? Did they respond?" "No, not yet. It took me this long to write the message and I just sent it a couple of minutes ago. As for what I said, I basically wrote I won't be coming to the lectures for some time and might miss a few exams because there's minor, temporary trouble in my personal and family life. That was it. If I fall behind in my studies because I'm absent, that's mostly my own loss, and as far as I'm concerned, they don't really have any business prying into the details anyway. If they do, though, I'll come up with a better story." "Have you thought about your future plans yet?" Mom asked. "I know you have a lot on your mind right now, but you'll have to give your studies and career some consideration sooner or later. Will they let you continue at the University if you have to stay a girl?" "I have no idea," I confessed. "Offhand, I'd assume there must have been at least a handful of students who have voluntarily changed their sex in the history of the system, and the administration probably has a bureaucratic mechanism in place for dealing with cases like that, but it's not the real issue. I'd have to convince them I'm the same person as Mike Caldwell, and that would be downright impossible." "I'm really sorry. You put so much effort in getting your degree, and your Master's was almost finished. It'd be a shame to see all that go to waste." "Maybe it won't. Where's Kate?" I instinctively looked over my shoulder. "She went out a little before you got up," Mom told me. "Why?" "You have to keep quiet about this," I said. "Jake has heard that someone who lives a few hours' drive from here might have a potion of some kind that could possibly get us out of these suits. We're going to see that person today. We'll leave as soon as Jake gets here." Mom lifted her eyebrows. "Are you sure about it?" she asked me. "I thought the transformation was final." "So did I, but Jake has discovered it might not be. To be frank, I don't know if we can trust his information, but it's something, and we don't really have any other hope left. At the very least, I want to check the lead out." "It sounds dangerous to me," Mom said in a no-nonsense tone. "Do you know this person? Can you trust him?" "Her, actually," I corrected. "No, we don't know her, but there's no other way. We'll be on our guard, and if things begin to seem fishy, we'll leave at the first sign of trouble." "They already seem fishy to me, but I guess you know best. Promise you'll take care of yourselves!" "Of course we will, Mom. We have previous experience of weird stuff by now." She smiled and was about to get on with whatever housework she had been planning to do, but then, without preamble, she turned around, reached out and gave me a spontaneous hug. "Be safe," she said. "I will," I mumbled against her shoulder as I hugged her back. The clock was nearing eleven, so I had to start my preparations for the trip. I made my way upstairs and to my room to change. After shedding the sweatpants, I put on a pair of nude pantyhose, khaki trousers and a warm and fairly stylish black sweater. The next stop was the bathroom, where I first tied my hair in a ponytail and then helped myself to Kate's cosmetics. Relying on what I could recall from her lessons and my time spent in Sunnydale, I applied a touch of eyeliner, eye shadow and mascara. I had forgotten my purse in my room, so I ran there to get it and took the lipstick out, putting some on my lips. An understated whiff of perfume wouldn't go amiss in my opinion, so I included that as well. Finally, I put on a pair of small silver earrings. I posed for the mirror and noted with satisfaction that I looked, in my own judgment, presentable for a casual outing. Even though I still definitely had mixed feelings about dolling myself up, I had reasoned that Jake and I would in all likelihood attract more, not less, unwanted attention from other people if we went out in shabby masculine clothing and without any makeup. Furthermore, Kate would never have allowed me to leave the house without an honest effort at trying to follow the fashion guidelines she had set for me. In sum, it was best to get the thing over with right away. On a whim, I blew my image a kiss and said in a sultry voice, "Oh hi, Mikey! See anything you like?" I turned sideways to the mirror, pushed my bottom out and gave it a gentle slap with my hand. Giggling inwardly, I continued in an imitation of Leslie/Faith, "Do you know what we need? We need cock. We need a brainless stallion with a huge tool to fuck us so hard we..." As soon as the words had come out of my mouth, I stopped, taken aback and even ashamed. The joke was best saved for a situation where I felt much more secure and confident about myself. Kate had returned in the meantime. She was in the kitchen sorting out some groceries with Mom when I got there. "Wow!" she exclaimed as she saw me. "Looking nice, Buff! What's the occasion?" "Nothing special," I said. "We're just going on a little road trip, Jake and me. We've been cooped up inside for too long already." "What else will you be wearing?" "I was thinking I'd put on the dark blue denim jacket Mandy supplied, plus the new knee-high boots. It's not very warm outside anymore." "Let me see," she said, sizing me up carefully. "Yeah, I definitely approve. This means you just officially upgraded your style from lazy tomboy to casual chic. Good girl!" "Too bad I can't change my face," I complained. "It's a stroke of stinking bad luck that I should end up as a precise copy of another person." "Remember what Mandy said. Your skins were made to look like the actresses did when they were something like six or seven years younger than they are now, so there's a clear difference, and it will only get bigger as time goes by since you won't age in the exact same way they do." "I really hope so," I conceded. "Where did you say you were going again?" Kate inquired sharply all of a sudden. "Just, you know... out. We're taking my car and---" "Oh, my goodness!" she burst out in (presumably) fake shock. "She's going to bang some random guy she met online at a seedy motel! Mom, we've got to stop her!" "Come on, Kate!" I protested. "It's nothing like that!" "What? Jesus Christ, so you're going to have two guys at once?" She was playing the part of a morally outraged sibling with gusto and enjoying every second, whereas Mom merely looked on in amusement. "You really should have let me set you up with someone before taking things to this level! There are hundreds of men who'd treat you right, Buffy!" "Cut it out, will you, sis?" "At least make sure the studs wear condoms! Remember you can get infected through oral and anal sex as well!" At that moment, the rescue arrived in the shape of Jake--or Willow Rosenberg, if outward appearances are given more weight than inner identities. His mother's car appeared at the end of our driveway, and a young woman got out, marched to the front door, knocked briefly and entered the foyer while the car turned around and then promptly left. "Hi, everybody!" he called out brightly, stepping into the kitchen. "I'm ready to go!" We spent a full three seconds in complete silence as we took in the sight. Jake was dressed in dirty and disheveled men's clothes, that is, torn blue jeans held up with a leather belt and a brown knit pullover, both several sizes too large for his current form, but the true icing on the cake was the messy dark curly wig he had pulled on his head. It reminded me vividly of a dead small game animal, and although it admittedly hid his red hair and most of his pretty face well, it and the rest of his outfit couldn't be described as flattering in any sense of the word. Kate erupted in almost hysterical laughter. "Oh boy!" she exclaimed, gasping for air. "Wills, honey, you... you look like shit!" "It's a disguise," Jake countered with a slight tone of hurt pride in his voice. "I don't want to be recognized by people out there." "No, it's not," Kate said after getting over most of her hilarity but still giggling. I was also chuckling at Jake, and even Mom had failed to keep a straight face. "It's a disaster area! What were you thinking?" "I told you," he said. "This will ensure nobody bothers us for autographs, even though I can see Mike's looks will probably undermine my efforts." "And my efforts will undermine them once and for all," Kate declared. "Come with me, Willow. Time for an emergency makeover." "But I don't want to be recognized!" Jake argued. "They'll take you for an escaped mental ward patient if you go out in that getup. No, sweetie, I draw the line here. You're coming with me. Now." Mom and I had the opportunity to witness another example of Kate's determination carrying the day. Jake, totally defeated, followed my sister meekly as she went to the staircase and then upstairs. "Poor Jake," Mom mused with a smile. "He didn't have a chance! To be honest, though, Kate is right not to let him out in public in that attire." "I'm inclined to agree," I commented. "Dressing like a scarecrow is probably not the best way to keep a low profile." "It's funny how some of you are adapting so much better than others," she remarked. "Charlie and Scott could already give the average girl a run for her money at styling, and you're making real progress as well." "That reminds me," I said and fished out my cell phone from my purse. "I'll give Chuck a call. Who knows, maybe he'd like to come along." I selected Charlie's number, with Mom hovering nearby but, out of politeness, not so close as to be able to listen in. The dial tone sounded four times before Charlie picked up. "Hullo," I heard a young woman say on the other end of the connection. By now, my brain had managed to accept our bizarre situation to the extent that it associated the Cordelia voice with Charles McGee without the need to perform arduous mental gymnastics, even though I was nevertheless still a little shaken by the melodious, high-pitched sound of his speech. "Hi," I greeted him. "It's me, Mike. How's it going?" "Oh, I'm fine," he replied. "Just finished cleaning up my apartment. It's incredible how much junk I had lying around and taking up space. I really should have had someone keep the place in order and make me throw away things I don't need." "Uh, that's... good to hear," I said. This doubtless meant that his bachelor pad had begun to undergo an evolution into a feminine abode to match its occupant's own transformation. I could already imagine pink curtains and a four-poster bed there, along with a vanity set where his computer desk had once been, but I decided to push the intrusive thought aside. "By the way, are you doing anything else today?" "Well, kind of. Why do you ask?" "You see, Jake has caught wind of a means to get us out of these skinsuits. We thought we'd go and check it out together." "Okay," he said. He clearly sounded unsure as to what to make of this piece of news. "What exactly are you talking about?" "The way I understood it," I explained, "there is a person, living a hundred-odd miles from here, who might have an antidote in their possession. I don't know what it's like but I'm assuming a potion of some sort. We're planning to go and visit this person and find out more." "I guess it's none of my business," Charlie said after a short pause, "but your idea seems like going on a wild goose chase to me. Mandy told us the transformations can't be undone now, no matter what." "She did," I countered, "but there just might be a chance she was mistaken, or even lying, for all we know. I'm willing to try anything to get my old body back and I've got nothing to lose, anyway." "I understand where you're coming from, but don't you think it would be better just to give it up before something really bad happens? You'll end up hurting yourself or someone else." "We're not going to do anything plainly stupid, if that's what you mean. I think this is definitely worth investigating even if the whole thing turns out to be, in your words, a wild goose chase. As a matter of fact, we were hoping you might come too." "Thanks for the invitation," he said, obviously more out of courtesy than actual interest, "but I've got something else. A prior engagement." "What's that?" "A date." "You're going on a date?" "Sure thing. My girl cousin set me up with someone, and he's coming to pick me up today at six. It's a bit sudden, to be honest, but he seems like a nice enough person." I noticed the pronoun and couldn't help but bring the subject up. "He?" "Well, yeah," Charlie responded. "A guy. I told you I'm kind of into guys now. Is that a problem?" I was at a loss of words. He had indeed mentioned the change in his sexual preferences at the sleepover last Saturday and it would hardly have been impossible to anticipate anyway, given that Scott had mentally developed into Dawn in a similar but even more abrupt manner--and yet the news still came as something of a surprise and a shock to me. Another one of my close male friends had reinvented himself as a young woman and would not look back. After a couple of seconds, I realized I was supposed to conclude the conversation, and I blurted out awkwardly, "Oh, okay. Have fun with him." "Thanks! Take care, guys." "Bye, Charlie." "Bye bye." I hung up and slipped the cell back into the purse. Mom asked, "What did he say?" "Our friend Cordelia," I explained with a wry, joyless smile, "won't be joining us because she's going on a date with a man." "I see. His mental change does seem to be pretty far along." "A change," I said, "or a malfunction, and obviously a major one at that." I was beginning to get impatient when Kate finally came downstairs and announced triumphantly, "Let me introduce to you--Willow!" The red-haired girl who had once been my male friend Jake White appeared in the doorway behind her, with a bashful and slightly embarrassed look on her face. The crazy cat lady was gone, and she had been replaced by a beautiful, neatly dressed young woman with her shortish hair carefully groomed and her face tastefully made up. The outfit was perfect for her character: a pink fluffy sweater with a little white embroidered heart on the front, black leggings and a flower-patterned dark skirt whose hem didn't quite reach her knees. A small silver necklace added a touch of elegance. Kate had allowed her to keep her sneakers, most likely because they were reasonably clean and also because no other pair of shoes in our house would necessarily have fit her. She wouldn't have seemed the slightest bit out of place in a random Buffy episode near the middle of the show's run. "What an improvement!" Mom complimented her. The temptation to crack a joke at my buddy's expense was too great to resist. "Fantastic, Jake!" I gushed, trying hard not to laugh. "I've got to say that look really brings out the cuddly lesbian Wicca girl in you!" "Get bent," he grumbled to me. "Will you guys be home for dinner?" Mom asked. "You're naturally welcome to join us, Jake." "I don't think we can make it," I replied for us both. "We reckon it will take us around three hours to get there and another three to get back, so we'll probably grab a bite to eat on the road." "Did you call Chuck, by any chance?" Jake asked me. "I did, just now." I shook my head slowly, and Jake's expression, which had begun to show small signs of optimism, once more became somber and crestfallen. "I think we need to get going," I said to both Mom and Jake. "I'd like to be home before dark, and we're already running a little late." "Seems to me you've made pretty careful plans for a simple joyride," Kate said. Her increasing suspicion was palpable. "Is there anything me and Mom should know?" "No, nothing," I replied. "It'll essentially be what they call a mystery tour over in the UK. We'll burn a few gallons of gas for no good reason whatsoever and see where we end up." "If you say so," she quipped, but I could sense her curiosity was not satisfied nor her fears allayed. I thought I had heard the front door open and close at some point, but that hadn't registered with me until a series of footsteps sounded in the foyer. I turned around and found myself face to face with Dawn, who had materialized as though out of thin air. "How did you get here?" I asked the teen girl. "Oh, through this hole in the wall over there," came the cheerfully flippant answer. "I've heard some people call it a door." "Didn't your mother ground you?" Jake inquired. "Yeah, she did," Dawn explained with a smile, "but I went to work on Dad and made puppy dog faces at him until he granted me parole. I'm not allowed to leave town or see boys, though." "You're certainly dressed pretty well," Kate pointed out and lifted her eyebrows. "Are you sure you didn't bend the truth about not going to see anyone?" "You mean this?" She spun around, casually showing off her outfit of a black print t-shirt underneath a pink button-down blouse and dark blue skinny jeans with a smattering of sequins on the legs. In addition, she had a dubiously large amount of both eye makeup and lipstick on. "Nah, I just wanted to look nice. Besides, you never know what could happen. I didn't go out specifically to see a particular guy, but if I accidentally run into a cute one who wants to talk to me..." This situation was maddening from my point of view. It was imperative that Dawn be kept in the dark as to where and why Jake and I were going, but we could not simply throw her out and tell her to go home. On the other hand, she was far too curious not to ask questions if we tried to leave right away. Kate had already attempted to pry into our motives; Dawn doing the same could have ended in disaster, bearing in mind that she had avowed she would do everything in her power to prevent us from ever changing back into men. As it happened, Kate dealt our plans the final blow. "Hey, I got a great idea! Why don't you guys take Dawn along with you?" "Take me? Where?" the girl asked. As I had feared, she was immediately interested. "Buffy and Willow are going on a car ride," Kate told her helpfully as I gnashed my teeth in subdued rage. "From what I've heard, they'll just drive around with no specific destination and enjoy themselves. I bet they would love to have you join them." "Can I come?" Dawn pleaded with me. "Please, guys? We could stop at the Chesterton mall and see if Brett is there." "Chesterton's not in the direction we'll be heading," Jake said. "Pretty please?" Dawn went on. "I promise I won't cause any trouble! Hey, we could go on a stakeout at the high school and check out the eligible junior and senior boys as they leave for home. That would be fun!" "Maybe for you," I said. "We weren't---" "Or, we could go all the way to the city and see who's out and about. I bet the University campus has plenty to offer for us, male-wise. Yeah, and female-wise for you, Willow." "We're not going there, that's a given," I told her. "Look, Dawn, this is going to be a random thing. We don't have anything special planned. You'll be bored out of your skull." "No, I won't. Please, Buffy? Please?" She punctuated this plea with a face the likes of which had won Don Anderson over, and I relented, seeing no other way out. I had reason and opportunity to regret this decision later. "Alright, fine," I said. "But you have to behave yourself and not complain. This is our trip, and we make the rules." "Thank you!" she exclaimed and hugged first me and then Jake. "This is so great! Are we going now?" "Yes. As a matter of fact, we're falling behind schedule as we speak." At long last, we were ready to leave. As soon as I had checked that my purse contained everything necessary and pulled on my denim jacket and changed into the zip-up boots, we made our way to my car. The weather was sunny with clear blue skies, but rather brisk--there even was a cool breeze blowing--so we had to dress warmly. Jake had brought his old dark brown short leather coat with him, while Dawn was comfortably enveloped in a soft duvet jacket. The teen found her seat in the back, and Jake manned the right-hand seat at the front. This was my first time driving my car in the Buffy body. I had to adjust the seat considerably, along with the mirrors, to be able to drive properly to begin with, and even then everything seemed off, from the feeling of the steering wheel to the smell inside the car. To compound the strangeness, I was again on the road with Jake and Scott, just as I had been a while ago-- but actually all that had happened in an alternate future more than ten years from now. The people (or their conscious identities) and the car were the same in both instances, while the reality around them was not. With Dawn on board, Jake and I obviously could not discuss the actual reason for our trip, which was extremely vexing for me as I was anxious to hear all the information Jake had on our destination, the woman who had the antidote, and the antidote itself. Even though his academic achievements were not stellar by any means, Scott had always been very bright in his own way, especially when it came to interaction between people; and while it would have been easy to underestimate Dawn's intelligence, I had more than enough reason to suspect there was a sharp mind beneath the deceptively simple bubbly teen girl personality. "So, Mike," Jake said. "Mind if I inquire into your private life a bit?" "Not at all." "You know, what with these transformations... how is your family taking it? I mean people other than Kate and your mother. What have their reactions been like? If you don't want to talk about it, I understand." "They don't know yet," I confessed. "Not even my father. He's due back from Germany some time late this week, maybe around Friday or Saturday, and he's still completely out of the loop. Fortunately his employer extended his stay there by a few days, and he agreed to it." "What do you think he'll say?" "I'd rather not think about that. I'm hoping... I was hoping to avoid having to tell him in the first place. Old Tony Caldwell is in for the shock of his life if he finds out his son is now Buffy the Vampire Slayer." "He should be glad and proud," Dawn commented on this. "My dad was confused at first, but he came around really fast when he got to know me. So will yours." "My folks are a work in progress in that respect," Jake said and sighed. "They were stunned, and then Dad stormed out of the house and went to work in the garage. Mom broke down in tears and laid the blame for my fate and pretty much everything else squarely on Dad." "That's awful!" Dawn voiced her sympathy. "Actually, Uncle Zack took some of the heat off of me that same day. The cops had found him patrolling his neighborhood with plenty of fresh layers of aluminum foil applied to his bicycle helmet and a paintball gun loaded with concentrated psychic energy. They said the man had tried to break into someone's house to wipe out the base of the lizard aliens hidden in their basement. Mom went to see him at the hospital and said something about overdosing on her sleeping pills when she got back." "Good God," I breathed. "I'm sorry for you." "It's just business as usual in our household. I'm not seriously worried. Things could always be worse. At least our Targeted Individual wasn't toting around his real rifle, so there's that to be grateful for." "Does he still have the M1903 Springfield?" "I believe he does, but he's careful not to show it to outsiders since he's not its legal owner, and ordinary firearm ammo doesn't work well on the aliens anyway, according to him. Apparently they have some kind of bulletproof suits on at all times, or maybe their scales are made of some tough natural material that the soft point rounds won't penetrate. He's saving the rifle for his last stand against the Government spooks." We made good time, and the ride was generally enjoyable, with the weather favoring us and other traffic not being too heavy. Unexpectedly, a slender arm reached out for the radio controls from the behind my right shoulder. Dawn fiddled with them for a while, finally managed to turn the radio on and then sat down again. To her delight, the receiver was tuned to the same pop music station Kate and I had listened to on our trip to Chesterton. Jake and I were both too courteous and too preoccupied to argue over the choice of entertainment, so the radio was left on. By this point, we had covered well over half of the one-way distance to our destination. "What do you say we stop for a cup of coffee?" I suggested. "My treat. I'll get us some gas while we're there." "I'm game," Jake agreed. "Sure," Dawn said for her part. "I'd prefer a hot chocolate, though." I turned off the main road at the next gas station and pulled up in front of its restaurant building to let Jake and Dawn out. "You guys go on ahead," I told them. "Wait for me inside. We'll get the drinks when I come in, and I'll pay for everyone." As they made a beeline for the main doors, I drove to the fuel island, stopped next to a pump and got out of the car. Without much conscious thought, I took my ATM card from my purse, inserted it into the slot of the payment terminal, selected the pump and the gasoline type, got the card back, grabbed the proper nozzle and proceeded to fill the tank. I couldn't help but notice the tiny eye of the security camera that took pictures of everyone who paid for the gas at the pump with a card. The card was still in my old name since it would take a couple of weeks and some very delicate maneuvering to have my bank accounts transferred to "Cindy" without making the whole affair seem overly suspicious and alerting the wrong people, according to Mandy, who would contact her friends to put the operation in motion on my behalf as soon as I gave her the go-ahead. Until the transfer was complete and the paperwork in order, I would have to pay with cash whenever I could. However, by now I was low on it and had no choice but to resort to using the card if I wanted my tank full. I hadn't reported the card as stolen, so there was minimal chance someone would review the security camera images and realize that a Hollywood celebrity was apparently withdrawing money from my bank account and buying gas with my ATM card, but the resulting scandal would have been so momentous that it was worth the trouble to take precautions against it anyway. All the while I was being assailed by a peculiar feeling, sort of like d?j? vu but not quite the same; and if I stopped concentrating on the present and allowed my thoughts to wander, the recollections of this trip and the Texas journey, which awaited me far away in a potential future I would perhaps never reach, mixed into one incoherent jumble right away in my head. Had I already been there, or was it yet to come? Did the fact that I could remember being myself over ten years from now and going on a vacation with my friends prove that I would eventually be able to get out of the Buffy skin? Or was I living this day for a second time? When the car had had its tank topped, I drove the vehicle to the parking area, got out again and locked the doors. The promise of a large cup of hot coffee, maybe accompanied by a sandwich or a small piece of pie, improved my mood and helped dispel the troublesome thoughts and doubts. We'd take one matter at a time, proceed with caution and, just perhaps, Jake and I would be out of this whole mess by tomorrow morning. I walked in through the main doors and entered the restaurant area. At once, I almost literally bumped into a large, gray-haired, pot-bellied man, perhaps about sixty years old, who was standing at the end of the service line. The man, dressed in shabby jeans and a biker vest, was staring at me through his glasses with his mouth hanging open. I pursed my lips into a diplomatic, joyless small smile and went past him, slightly speeding up my steps. Several other people seated at the tables around the room were looking at me as well. A young couple having bagels stopped eating when they spotted me, and in the far corner a group of four high school girls, apparently cutting class, followed my movements with the same amount of curiosity as the middle-aged man. One of the group whispered something to her friends as I neared the table Dawn and Jake were sitting at. Things were assuredly amiss here, I thought and felt my apprehension grow. "What's up?" I asked the others in a lowered voice, taking a seat opposite to them. "Are we in some kind of trouble?" "No," Dawn replied in a more relaxed manner but fortunately almost as quietly as I had spoken. "Why?" "I mean, these people are staring at us," I said in an even more hushed voice in an attempt not to let anyone outside of our table hear us. "Did something happen?" "No, nothing much." This answer filled me immediately with foreboding. Before I could demand that she tell me more, Dawn explained, "I just went to the bathroom to wash my hands, and this girl comes up to me and asks me if I'm Michelle Trachtenberg. I think she's sitting over there now with her friends." "What did you say to her?" "She looked like she was not going to believe me if I said no, so I used reverse psychology and said yes." "You did what!?" I spat out, keeping the volume down only with great difficulty. "You---" "We are in trouble alright," Jake observed needlessly and rubbed his forehead in exasperation. "So, anyway," Dawn continued, unfazed as ever, "aren't we going to get the drinks?" "Would you like to go there to get them?" I said. As if to emphasize my words, the fat fellow in the biker vest walked right past our table, carrying a tray. He gave us another long look. "Um, excuse me?" The girlish voice coming from behind me and to my left startled me. "Could I get your autographs?" She was a member of the group I had assumed were truant high schoolers, a petite and short brunette girl of maybe about 15 or 16, with a homely, round face, wearing a pair of black- rimmed glasses. She had a yellow paper napkin in one hand and a ball point pen in the other. Jake and Dawn looked at me, and the latter broke into an amused smile. "I don't see why not," I said and tried to smile as well to the girl, even though I would have much rather crawled under the table. She handed the napkin and the pen to me, and I wrote the words "Lots of love" on the napkin before scrawling an illegible squiggly line underneath. Jake added a similar messy scratch after mine, but Dawn went so far as to attempt to forge the signature of the actress whose doppelganger she was. She also drew a bevy of hearts around the text. "This is so cool!" the girl gushed. "I'm the biggest fan of you guys and Joss Whedon! Buffy and Angel are, like, the best things ever on TV!" "Oh, thank you!" Dawn responded, playing her role to the hilt. "That's so sweet!" "So... any word on the reunion yet?" the girl asked hopefully. "I bet you have lots of stuff going on all the time and you probably want to do other things as well, but I was wondering if Joss or someone has already..." "There's nothing definite at the moment, but you never know," Dawn said and smiled at the girl again. "Wow! Thanks so much!" the girl exclaimed upon getting the napkin and the pen back from Dawn. "I'm going to call all my friends and tell them about this right away!" "Pleasure meeting you," I commented as she skipped to her table. As soon as it seemed appropriate, I got on my feet and marched out. Jake followed me, and Dawn, who had clearly been enjoying the attention, trailed reluctantly behind us. Every second until I could turn the keys in the ignition and put the car in gear made me more nervous and fearful of an incident. It wasn't until we were moving again that I could breathe a quiet sigh of relief. "No coffee, then," Jake remarked. "No coffee," I said. ***** The quiet suburban street looked much like any other in the neighborhood with its two rows of almost identical one-and-a-half story family homes, short driveways and small, well-kept lawns. This was precisely the kind of setting which had become a clich? in horror stories and movies: an All- American wholesome town, with an orderly and clean surface and a terrifying secret life. I let the car roll to a stop at the curb and turned the engine off. "Is this the place?" I asked Jake, who was busy studying the map he had printed out at home. "Should be," he confirmed. "It's that house, the second one to the left and across the street from here." "Would you mind telling me, in plain English, what exactly we're supposed to be doing here?" Dawn inquired, with a tone of impatience creeping into her voice. "An online friend of mine lives in that house over there," Jake said and gestured at the building he had pointed out to me. "She asked us to drop by, a-and... I'm buying a model airplane from her." The lie was reasonably clever and plausible, considering Jake had to make it up on the spot, but he had delivered it in a manner which was less than absolutely convincing. Sure enough, Dawn picked up on this. "A model airplane?" she repeated incredulously. "Since when do you collect model airplanes?" "I've been interested in them for a while." "What kind of a plane is it, anyway?" "It's a... It's an early Vietnam-era F-105 Thunderchief in ground attack configuration. A real beauty, judging by the pictures the seller sent me." "Oh, right," Dawn said and yawned. This was going well, I thought. Even though Scott had occasionally shown mild interest in vintage military technology, to Dawn it represented--just as we had assumed and hoped--the epitome of boredom. With any luck, Jake's psychologically brilliant move would quell once and for all her suspicions as to the actual reason we had come here. We had been familiar with Dawn the Sweetheart before the trip, but now we had also met Dawn the Petulant Teenager. As soon as we were on the road again, I had argued with her over the gas station incident and, after losing my temper for a brief moment, called her a muppet. She took offense and immediately gave us half an hour's worth of silent treatment ("They're like hand puppets, so I'm a hand puppet, and puppets don't speak, right?"); when she eventually did talk to us again, she whined how all she had been trying to do was help, how nobody ever understood her and how her feelings were constantly ignored and trampled on. She capped off the tirade with a strange accusation that I had been particularly callous towards her ever since "things went wrong with Mom", which left me totally dumbfounded until I realized, several minutes later and to my horror, that "Mom" had to be Joyce Summers, not Ellen Anderson or Gail Caldwell. Unsure how to deal with this, I could only hope that the worst of the storm would blow over quickly, which it thankfully did. However, her attitude towards Jake and me continued to be slightly colder than it had been earlier in the morning. "Dawn?" I said. This was still a delicate situation, and the success of our little mission most likely hung in the balance. "What is it?" "We're going there to see Jake's friend now. Are you coming too? You don't have to if you're not interested." "To listen to you guys talk about models of old warplanes with some weirdo girl? Who on earth would want to miss that!" she said sarcastically. "We won't be more than half an hour, one hour tops," Jake told her. "I'll much rather stay here," Dawn declared. "Just leave the keys in. I promise I won't drive off." "You'd better be as good as your word," I warned her and gave Jake a surreptitious wink. "Don't worry, Buffy. I've got my cell, so if anything happens, you can call me." "Alright. We're trusting you, Dawnie." "Yeah, yeah. Go already so we'll have time to visit some place where a normal person can actually have fun on the way back." I could hardly believe our good luck. As Jake and I got out of the car and walked across the street, doing our best to seem calm and cool, the teen remained in the back seat with her phone in her hand. She appeared to be typing a text message to someone, I noticed and wondered if she had managed to establish herself a new network of friends so soon after becoming Dawn. The house was silent, though neat and tidy from the outside, and the driveway was empty. All the windows facing the street had their curtains closed. Few signs of life could be seen anywhere on the property. There was something indeterminately ominous about the locale, not overtly threatening or uninviting, but the feeling it gave me was nevertheless strong enough to make me have second thoughts about our decision to visit here. Jake was the more confident of the two of us. He walked to the front door and pressed the doorbell button. The clear ringing of a traditional, old- fashioned doorbell could be heard outside. "Are you sure about this?" I asked him. "Too late to turn back," he replied and grinned, but his eyes betrayed his nervousness. Soft footsteps carried from the other side of the door, and a few seconds later there was the sound of a security chain being unfastened. The resident of the house had obviously checked the situation through the peephole first. Then the lock rattled, the door opened ajar and the head of a brown-haired woman peeked out. "Oh, it's you!" she said in a melodious voice and opened the door properly. "Sorry to have kept you waiting! I tend to get kinda jumpy when strangers ring my doorbell." "No problem," Jake said. "Playing it safe is a good policy under the circumstances." "Speaking of which--Burnside!" "Maynard!" Jake replied without missing a beat. "Come on in!" she motioned and then continued, pointing at the coat rack in the hallway, "You can hang your jackets there. Make yourselves at home, guys." We shed the extra clothing as suggested and then walked further into the house, following her. As she was leading us to a living room with a kitchen corner, I had the opportunity to take a good look at the woman. She was considerably younger than I had at first estimated, hardly much older than eighteen, approximately as tall as Charlie in his Cordelia form, and of slim build. She had a beautiful, oval-shaped face with a fairly pointed chin, and her head was topped by a mass of dark brown, curly long hair in what Kate would undoubtedly have described as "a 1980s do". Bright brown eyes under a pair of gently arcing eyebrows stole inquisitive glances at us. She had form- fitting jeans and an oversized blue and white plaid flannel shirt on, completing the impression that she was, or at least aspired to be, an icon of casual teen fashion from an era two decades in the past. There appeared to be something oddly familiar about the girl. It was difficult if not impossible for me to put my finger on, but I was nearly certain I had seen and possibly even met her, or someone just like her, if only in passing. "Can I get you anything?" she asked us as we took our seats at a tall antique coffee table. It was placed near a couple of windows facing the back yard of the property, so we had plenty of light. "No, we're good," Jake replied for both of us. "What should I call you guys?" she inquired next. "Is it just Willow and Buffy, or...?" "This is Cindy," Jake said, gesturing at me, "and I'm Suzie, for the time being." "Cindy and Suzie," she repeated. "I'm Becky." She got up from her chair so that we could shake hands, and then followed the round of introductions with a surprising question: "Are you guys Jewish, by any chance?" "No," Jake said. "Why?" "Oh, no reason; it just occurred to me... I thought... Uh, jeez, that must have been the worst conversation opener ever!" she giggled. A brief pause followed. Becky was still eying us as though trying to read our thoughts. Curiosity really seemed to be a defining characteristic for her if this encounter was anything to go by. "I hope I'm not being rude," I said, after summoning up the courage to put into words the thought that had preoccupied my mind for the last minute, "but since we're on the topic of personal information--have we met before, Becky?" "I don't think so, Cindy," she answered without hesitation. "But if you mean this body... The thing is, my looks were modeled after someone who never got the chance to be all she could be and reach the success she was destined for. I like to regard myself as a living tribute to her. You might be thinking of her." "Okay. I understand." "You see, I used to be a man, just like you two," she explained. "It's a long story, and I don't want to bore you with all the details. The gist is that I once met this woman who makes skinsuits. It was several years ago now, and I've had no contact with her since. Anyway, she told me I was obviously kind of unhappy as a man and needed a change, which was true in a sense, I guess. She said she had these magical suits which you could put on and then take off. They would transform you completely into another person but you could reverse it whenever you wanted and go back to being yourself." "We were told so too," Jake pointed out. "The same lie." "You of course know that stuff already. So, I picked the suit that looked like... this woman I'm now because I had always had a soft spot for her. I kind of enjoyed it at first, but when I tried to take the suit off, I realized I was stuck. The woman couldn't help me. She said I had been wearing the skin for too long." "It's uncanny, isn't it?" Jake commented. "That's exactly what happened to us, except the part about enjoying the change at first." "Was the woman who gave you the suit called Amanda Elkins?" I asked Becky. "No," she said. "I've never heard of anyone by that name, though she could have used a false identity with me. What's more, I found out later that there are actually several people who make these skins--I know of at least three--and some of them aren't on very good terms with the others." "Really?" Jake burst out. "Several? You mean there are folks like Amanda and whoever made your suit all over the country?" This was clearly news to him, and proof to me that he had no recollection of the Cinnamon encounter. On the other hand, I was no longer certain we had actually come across her and her hippie commune in real life as opposed to a hallucination fueled by a mental illness, a drug trip, or perhaps a combination of both. "The country and probably the world. I've gotten the impression that they're split into two or more camps who don't agree on how they should run their affairs. A few weeks after I had gotten stuck, somebody rung my doorbell late at night. There was an old woman at my door, and I invited her to come in but she wouldn't. She told me that I should never have gotten involved in this skinsuit business and that the person, or people, who talked me into wearing a suit didn't have my best interest in mind but just their own." "Did she threaten you or something?" I inquired. "No; she was basically nice to me and didn't say anything like 'We'll hurt you if you do this and that' in overt terms, but she did let me know that I had made a mistake. If I wanted a suit, I should've gotten one of hers instead." "A traveling skinsuit saleswoman," I quipped. "Now I've seen it all." Naturally, I was wrong with that assumption. "But wasn't that sort of a moot point?" Jake carried on, not paying me any attention. "If you were already stuck in a skin for good and couldn't remove it, why warn you then?" "That's where the antidote comes in," Becky replied with a knowing smile. "She gave it to me and said I could use it to get out of this Becky suit. After that, the woman would get in touch with me and arrange for me to have any suit I liked. Then she left. She said good night, walked away, and I've never seen her again." "You obviously didn't use the antidote." "That's right, I didn't. At first, I was definitely going to, though. I had come to the conclusion I shouldn't have put the skinsuit on, totally irrespective of secret societies and their schemes. My life had turned upside down because of the suit. I had lost my family and friends and my job. But then things began to work out for me. The suit makers, or maybe other people in cahoots with them, helped me along and I got a new job and this house. At some point I just realized I'm happier as Becky, even if you take the difficulties into account. I'm young and beautiful and attractive, pretty much the polar opposite of the old me, and I'm giving this girl another chance to live. When you think about it, who am I to complain?" I had noticed a couple of pictures hanging on the wall opposite the windows. One was a portrait photograph of a nearly bald, heavy-set smiling man with thick black eyebrows and drooping eyelids, and the other featured a group of men dressed in late 19th Century clothing and posing in front of a steam locomotive. The bald man, wearing a bowler hat and holding a walking stick, was the second from the right. Unless the perspective was somehow skewed or he was standing in a shallow depression on the ground, he was almost half a head shorter than the others. In all likelihood, this man was Becky before her transformation. While he had not been ugly by any measure, I couldn't blame him for wanting to trade his rather unremarkable old body in for Becky's youthful and gorgeous physical form. "Can't argue with that," Jake mused, echoing my thoughts. "You are hot, Becky. There's no way around it." "I could say the same thing to you, Suzie and Cindy," Becky returned the compliment with a smile. "Maybe you should wait for a while and see if becoming men again is what you really want." "I'd say we've made our minds up. There's no need for any more deliberation." "I'm with you," I said for my part. "It's not that these bodies are not nice; they're not ours, and that's the problem." "Okay," Becky responded. "Of course, it's not for me to decide anyway. You can do what you like." "So," Jake went on, "are we still on the same page about the deal? You're not wanting anything in exchange?" "What have you got?" she asked us and grinned. For a second, anxiety almost overcame me as I was aware we had a very limited amount of money to give her, not to mention anything else. Then, however, her grin once again became a friendly smile. "Just kidding, guys! I really have no use for the antidote anyway, and I kind of believe I'll be better off without the thing in my cupboard. Ever since I got it, I've been a little bit worried that it could... I don't know, land me in trouble with the maker of this skinsuit, or others in her group." "When I think of Mandy Elkins and how she came across to me," Jake contemplated, "it seems out of character for her that she would go around intimidating and gunning down people she doesn't like. It's not impossible, but somehow I can't see it happening." "I wouldn't put anything past those folks," I commented for my part. "Even if violence is not part of Mandy's usual bag of tricks, there could be other skin makers who have no such scruples. You said yourself that playing it safe is smart under these circumstances, and I agree." "Sure, of course," he admitted. "How about I show you the antidote," Becky said and sprung to her feet, walking to the kitchen corner. "It's right over there. Just a sec!" She opened the kitchen cabinet above the stove, stood on her tiptoes to reach and grabbed a small item from one of the cabinet shelves. As she returned to the coffee table, we could see that she was carrying a small bottle made of clear glass, with a tiny decorated cap of the same material. Aside from missing a label, it was very similar to the vintage apothecary bottles and jars sometimes on display at drugstores. A light red liquid filled some two thirds of the bottle's volume. It was reminiscent of thick raspberry juice in color and roughly also in viscosity, judging by how it left behind a layer on the inner surface of the glass as Becky slowly tilted the bottle in her hand. "How do you take it?" Jake queried. "You can drink it," Becky explained, "or you can rub some on your skin. Drinking is much more effective but also more dangerous if you overdose." "Okay, so, what's the dosage?" "All the instructions are on a small piece of paper that came with the bottle. I'll give it to you along with this. Remember, you must follow them to the letter. The old woman told me this is extremely important. The stuff is so strong you could die if you make a mistake and take too much." "What does it actually do?" I asked her. "What happens when we drink it?" "It's supposed to kill the skinsuit symbiont you're wearing, but it shouldn't harm you, provided that you've got the dosage right. I don't know the specifics as I've never tried it myself, but basically the skin will crumble away in a matter of minutes and you get out. That's all there is to it, or so I was told." "Is the process painful?" Jake queried. "Did the woman say anything about that?" "No, she didn't. I'd assume she would have mentioned it if it was relevant, but then again, I'm only guessing here." Jake and I shared a look. It was essentially a foregone conclusion that we would go home with the antidote, as long as Becky was willing to part with it, but I nonetheless felt as though the final decision needed to be made there and then. I had hoped we would obtain more information about the potion and how it worked, as we would be trusting our health and even our lives to it, but Becky logically had no experience using it and therefore could only pass on to us whatever knowledge she had culled from the old woman and possibly her other sources. The written instructions would be all the more crucial to have because of this. "I think we'll take the antidote," Jake declared finally. "If you're still giving it away, that is." "It's a deal!" Becky said. "If you're not in a hurry, I'll pack it for you. That way you won't have to carry it around in your pocket or purse and worry about dropping it." "That's very kind of you," I commented. Becky ran off with the bottle, presumably to the bedroom, and the sounds that carried to the living room signaled that she was most likely rummaging around in a closet. In almost no time at all she came back, with an old shoe box in her hand. "It's in here," she said and opened the box so Jake and I could see the bottle was inside, wrapped in paper towels. "I put the instruction slip there too, so the package is good to go." "Thank you so much!" Jake said. "We really appreciate this." "Absolutely!" I accompanied him. "Much obliged." "Don't mention it," she said simply. "Like I told you, I have no use for the antidote, so I might as well let someone else have it." There was another round of thanks by us, after which Becky suggested one last time that we could have some refreshments together. Jake and I refused politely, primarily because we wanted to get home as quickly as possible now that we had the antidote and while there was still daylight left. Furthermore, even though Becky's sincerity didn't leave any room for doubt in itself, the nuances of her voice and body language conveyed to me that she was, in actuality, a bit nervous and tense with us in her house. We represented an indistinct but real risk and danger to her, I comprehended, and she would be relieved when we were gone. The end result was that we thanked her once more, put our jackets on and said our goodbyes. Jake took charge of the box containing the antidote. Becky saw us to the door and closed it right behind us. "Where did you come across her, anyway?" I asked Jake when Becky herself was out of earshot. "On that forum Ricky Meyer used to run, 'Civil War Weapons And Tactics'. Why?" "Just being curious." Upon walking out of Becky's front door, I had taken note of the fact that my car seemed abandoned, and as soon as Jake and I had crossed the street and reached it, we discovered that its doors were locked and Dawn was indeed missing. She had the keys, so we could only wait for her to return or go looking for her. "She got bored and wandered off," Jake deduced, positioning the box more comfortably under his arm. "Remind me again, why did we bring her along?" "Thank Kate, not me," I retorted. "Should we call her?" "That's probably unnecessary. I don't think she's gone very far. Find the nearest cute 16-year-old boy, and you find her." My facetious little prediction turned out to be precisely correct. Two blocks away, at the corner of a small alley that joined the street, we spotted two young people talking. The taller one was a brown-haired boy in his late teens, wearing a sports jacket, and the (slightly) shorter one was a girl who was instantly recognizable to us even though she had her back turned in our direction. We couldn't make out the individual words at this distance, but he nevertheless appeared to be telling her a story, gesturing with his hands and explaining something in a lively manner. She readily rewarded him with laughter. I could also see that Dawn was constantly twirling her hair with her fingers. The boy was being flirted with in earnest. "We ought to go there and cut in," Jake suggested. "That's not a very good idea. We don't want anyone else to see our faces and think we're the people we regrettably look like. If those two start getting too cozy, I'll call her cell." "And if that doesn't work?" "I'll go over and tell her she has to come with us. You stay here and guard the antidote." "Okay. Sounds like a plan." In the end, our intervention was not required. Dawn glanced over her shoulder, noticed us standing on the curb and said something to the boy. After another minute or so, they separated, smiling and waving at each other, and then Dawn walked to us with a cheerful bounce in her step. Her face and her entire being radiated pure joy. "I got his number!" she reported in an ebullient manner. "I got his number!" "And he got yours, I presume," Jake said. "Sure! By the way, did you see those eyes? I could just drown in them!" "Good thing you didn't," I commented. "We're ready to leave." "Is the model airplane in that box?" she asked Jake. "Yeah," he replied. "It's got... detachable wings so it's easier to transport." "Correct me if I'm wrong," I said to the girl, "but wasn't Brett supposed to be the love of your life?" "We're not officially together yet," Dawn commented, "so talking to other guys hardly counts as cheating. There's no harm in looking around, right? I want to see what's available." "You may have a point there," I admitted. "Besides," she went on in a sassy tone, "Angel used to be your one and only, the guy you were going to stay with for the rest of your life. Still you both moved on, didn't you?" This little quip left me speechless. It was just as well that the car was only a few short paces away and I could immediately busy myself with getting the others to their seats, storing the shoe box carefully in the rear foot space and mentally going over the route we would take back to Greensville. Becky's home town was considerably bigger than Chesterton, let alone Greensville, and we had to spend some time navigating out of the suburban area to return to the highway. With Jake once more serving as my navigator, however, this was accomplished without any great difficulty. Dawn offered a random comment every now and then as well, initially curious to see what the city was like, but when I drove onto the highway ramp, she sighed, toyed with her cell phone for a while and then assumed a comfortable and restful position. It wasn't hard to realize that she was thinking back to her encounter with the boy and maybe also planning ahead for meeting him again. Then the traffic began to require the better part of my attention, and as the others had nothing on their minds that they wanted to share straight away, we continued on in silence. I had turned the radio off as well, glutted with the teen pop music, so there were no distractions. I glanced in the rear view mirror, which showed me the girl in the back seat. She was leaning back and had her eyes lightly closed, with a relaxed look on her face, blissfully oblivious to how much anxiety she had managed to cause for me. I was once more torn by conflicting emotions and loyalties when it came to Dawn. The dilemma of either accepting and loving her as she was or doing everything in my power to restore Scott's personality was now compounded with another problem: by all indications, she was fast becoming increasingly delusional. Not only had Dawn Anderson been almost supplanted by Dawn Summers (if there had been a meaningful distinction to begin with), but she was also clearly thinking of me ever more exclusively as Buffy Summers, not Mike or even Cindy Caldwell. I was at a total loss as to how to handle the situation. I had once read that playing along with the delusions of a mentally ill person was potentially very harmful, but trying to convince her otherwise could be extremely difficult and perhaps equally disastrous. If there really was enough antidote for three, then Jake and I would have to consider an extremely unpleasant course of action--forcing Dawn to take her dose so she would revert to Scott against her own wishes. "I was sort of wondering," Jake spoke up, breaking the quietude that had lasted for a quarter of an hour or more. "What did you mean by saying Becky looked familiar to you? Did you run into her at the University campus or somewhere else like that?" "No, definitely not," I replied. "I just thought I had seen her face before. It could have been on TV or online. It's only an impression I got, nothing important." "She claimed she was made to look like a particular person, kind of like we were, but that person was real in her case. What's more, she spoke of her as if something bad had happened to her." "Yeah, true, but I wouldn't read too much into it. Who knows, maybe the original Becky was his high school sweetheart who got killed by a drunk driver, or something like that." "It is pretty strange all the same." "Everything is pretty strange when you're dealing with these skinsuits." "Wait, what?" Dawn jumped in. "Was the model maker girl wearing a skinsuit?" She had been quiet for so long that I had forgotten about her almost completely, and suddenly I realized she had heard every word. I bit my lip in distress and anger at myself for having let my guard down and blurted out much more than would have been prudent. "Uh, yeah, I guess," I stammered. "She said so, but it had nothing to do with the airplane. She... um, she was just pointing out that it's funny how all of us have ended up stuck in skinsuits." "It is funny," Dawn mused and looked at both of us questioningly. "What are the odds?" Fortunately, she appeared to lose interest in the topic after this and, instead of pursuing it further, she simply stretched a little, yawned and settled again comfortably in preparation to dozing off. For the most part, the return trip was much like the outbound leg. The weather remained nice and the drive itself went smoothly in all respects. Jake and I still could not talk about the antidote even when Dawn was evidently in light sleep, but the important thing was that we had successfully secured it, and each passing mile was bringing us and it closer to home. Slowly but surely, my confidence increased as the likelihood of something untoward happening during the rest of the journey decreased. I went so far as to consider stopping for coffee again, naturally at a different gas station from the one we had visited earlier today, but decided not to push our luck, unless the others absolutely wanted some refreshments. They didn't, and since none of us was especially hungry as of yet, thanks to a nervous but uneventful stop at a drive- through hamburger restaurant before we had visited Becky, I drove on. I was almost certain that we would reach Greensville without incident. Once there, we would have to celebrate. The sun was low on the western horizon as we were nearing Greensville. We had exited the highway, and I was driving at an easygoing pace along the smaller local road. The wooded and gently rolling landscape was bathed in golden light, and we could even enjoy the sight as the road led almost directly north and so the rays of the sun were luckily not trying to blind us. "Is the old roadside park still there?" Dawn inquired from the back seat after another lengthy silence. She had been napping for most of the return journey. "Can we stop when we get there?" "What for?" I asked in response. "We have less than ten miles to go until we're home." "I know, but could we stop anyway? My legs are cramping." "Fine," I relented. "We can take a short break there if you want." The park--County Roadside Park Commemorating John B. Gatch, to give its full proper name--was not a major tourist attraction or a place of special importance in any other sense. In addition to the typical driveway looping out and then reconnecting with the main road, along with a car parking area, there were three weather-worn wooden picnic tables and a stand with a map of the state. The location itself was beautiful and tranquil, however, with a quiet forest surrounding both the park and the road. The last time I had stopped there had occurred some four years ago and had involved the head gasket of my car engine blowing and the radiator subsequently boiling over. My memories of that series of events (including the tow truck bill and repairs at a local car shop) were anything but fond. "Here we are," I announced as I pulled over in the parking area near the tables. The site was completely deserted, as usual. "Dawn, would you---" The girl unbuckled and fussed with something in the back seat. Once free of her seatbelt, she opened one of the rear doors and then slammed it shut with far more force than was necessary. Miffed at her disregard for my vehicle, I turned around in my seat to castigate her, but to my surprise I saw her sprinting away across the tended area of the park towards the woods. My first reaction was that we were witnessing another temper tantrum, however inexplicable, and that she would return to normal functioning after getting the chance to vent some excess energy. But then I saw a glint of sunlight reflected from something she was holding in her hand, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. "She's got the antidote!" Jake yelled into my ear. "For heaven's sake, we have to stop her!" "Oh fuck!" I cursed and opened my seatbelt. We had lost plenty of critical seconds, and Dawn, who was probably in a good physical condition and a competent runner, was already past the first trees and about to disappear from view. I made a mad dash after her. Even though my strides were normally a little shorter than hers, my legs seemed to carry me with effortless ease and at a prodigious speed in this agitated state. My pulse pounded in my ears and I felt blood rush to my head. In a few short seconds, I had passed the tables and was now running between the trees. The ground was uneven, with rocks and tufts of hay everywhere, and it was covered with slippery, molding dead leaves and fallen tree branches, but I hardly even noticed any of these obstacles. I was gaining on Dawn with every step. She pressed on in desperation, running up the side of a low hill and through a thicket of pine trees, and I chased her in possibly even greater desperation. Taking a quick look over my shoulder, I saw Jake following me; however, his running was much slower than mine and visibly more laborious. "Jake!" I called out to him. "Jake! Stay at the car! I... I left the keys in the ignition!" Despite this, he continued to push on, even though the distance between us kept opening. Dawn ran down the other side of the hill, jumped over a tiny brook and reached an almost flat area where the trees grew somewhat further apart than on the hill. She no longer had more than perhaps ten or fifteen yards on me, I estimated and picked up my pace. Suddenly she fell on her face with a shriek, having tripped on a fallen branch. She managed to scramble to her feet, but by then I was right beside her. She stopped, breathing heavily and squeezing the antidote bottle against her chest. She had no more chance of escape, but she looked defiant despite her glowing red cheeks and the tears glistening in her eyes. "Dawn," I said in as calm a voice as possible, "give me the bottle. Please." "No!" she screamed. "You'll never get it!" "Look, Dawnie," I pleaded. "I don't understand why you're doing this. The bottle is Jake's and mine. You have no right---" "You lied to me, Buffy!" she shouted in a teary voice. "You and Willow, you both lied to me! Does this look like a damn model airplane? Huh?" "Dawn, please, be reasonable. We didn't want you to get involved and hurt. We had to---" "I'm already hurt! And if you make yourself into Mike again or die trying, I'll hurt even more! I won't let you do it!" "Hey, I'm not going to die. I'll be very careful with the potion." "You'd kill yourself!" she argued. "Even if Mike survives, Buffy would die! I... I can't... I don't want her to die!" Sobs wracked her whole body, and I stepped closer and pulled her into a hug just as she broke down completely. Dawn held me in an incredibly tight grip and cried softly against my shoulder. Her tears, little warm drops of water, rolled down her cheeks and onto my face and my clothes. "Promise you'll never leave me," she said and sniffed. "Promise!" "I promise, Dawn," I said, not knowing what to do. I was on the verge of weeping uncontrollably myself and all out of solutions. A couple of my own tears mixed with hers. Whether she was delusional or not, her distress was painfully real--and so was mine. We must have stood in place hugging each other for several minutes when Jake finally arrived on the scene. He was short of breath and sweating; while his Willow form was very likely far more fit than Jake's own overweight body, the unanticipated exertion had nevertheless taken its toll on him. He kept a considerate and discreet distance, waiting to see how the situation would develop. "Dawnie?" I asked gently and swallowed a sob myself. "Dawnie, can I have the bottle?" "It's... there," she said and sniffed again. The antidote bottle had fallen to the ground and was now lying right next to Dawn's feet. Luckily it was still intact, and even the cap had held. Without uttering a word, Jake bent down to pick it up and put it in his jacket pocket. The girl's crying slowly subsided as she and I held each other. Finally, she let out a deep, long sigh and allowed her embrace to slacken, prompting me to let go of her as well. I had to blink repeatedly to clear my watery eyes and also to keep back additional tears. "What do we do now?" Jake asked. "We go home," I declared, doing my best to keep my voice from cracking. "This antidote thing is a little more complicated than we thought. We have to sit down and discuss it together. No more secrets or sneaking behind anyone's back." "You can't use it!" Dawn said emphatically. "Buffy, please! You're my sister! You're... you're all I have! And Willow--I love you too, and it would shatter me to pieces if something happened to either of you." "We're not really---" Jake began, but I quickly cut him off with, "Nothing's going to happen to us, Dawnie. One way or another, it will be alright. Trust me." Suddenly, I saw rapid movement out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned my head, it was already too late. A huge muscular arm had appeared from nowhere, and it scooped Dawn off her feet in a heartbeat. She only had time for one anguished and terrified scream, "Buffy!" The next second she was gone. (To be continued...)